Dan and Rachel King (Wycliffe Bible Translators) - September 2021

 
We are the King family – Rachel & Dan, with Aaron (13) and Lydia (10)

Dan was a Careforce worker at Sale West Community Church back in 2000-2001 when Steve Rankin was curate there. In 2013 we moved to Tanzania in partnership with Wycliffe Bible Translators. Dan is a Translation Consultant who works closely with mother-tongue Bible translators in Tanzania to translate the Bible into the local languages. Rachel is a GP. From 2013 to 2020 she headed up the outpatients section of a rural hospital in Tanzania, and initiated many clinics and health care programmes. During our years in Tanzania, we were greatly blessed by St Mary’s partnership with us in these ministries.

Although in March 2020 we had to relocate to UK (COVID), we are maintaining our close contacts in Tanzania. Dan is continuing full-time as a Translation Consultant. He is currently checking drafts of the New Testament prepared by the Kisi and the Ikizu people groups. The Kisi are a small but isolated group who live by fishing on the shores of lake Malawi. We are now working on translating their very first scriptures in the local language. The Ikizu are a larger group living close to Lake Victoria who are nearly ready to publish their whole New Testament for the first time.

At the moment, Dan has to conduct all this work through the internet, but we pray that Tanzania is soon removed from the red list so that he can travel there to meet with the translators face-to-face.

Our other great concern at this time is for some of the groups that we worked with for many years. The Nyakyusa and Ndali people-groups (numbering over 1.5m people) have both received their New Testaments in the last 2 years and are now engaged in the challenges of distributing these books and training pastors in how to read and use them. The people and the pastors are desperate to begin work on Old Testaments in their languages as well so that they can provide the churches with complete Bibles. This will need funding and careful planning, and for this both of these groups have set up their own Bible Translation Organisations to oversee and administer all Bible Translation work in their areas.

At the moment, they are starting with small achievable projects. For example, the Nyakyusa want to set up shops in the main towns for selling Bibles. The Ndali want to purchase two motorbikes so that the translators can travel to outlying and isolated villages to distribute the Scriptures there and teach the people how to access the Word of God in their own language.

 

PRAYERS


For now, we are settling down in the UK and the children are getting involved in their new schools and learning the ropes of a different culture and world. Please pray for them, and all of us, as we meet these new challenges

Pray also for the Nyakyusa and Ndali peoples as they seek to make the Word of God known to their people, and for our links with them to continue close and productive.

Please pray for the hospital that we miss so much. There are Christian staff there who share God’s love with the patients regularly and conduct healing and gospel ministries within the hospital. There are also doctors and nurses who work hard for little remuneration to help people receive good healthcare. They face so many obstacles and would value your prayers.